Abstract

There exists at present an urgent desire
for better biomarkers, especially in the context of pharmaceutical drug
development and in the detection and management of disease. Many researchers in
the area of biomarker discovery and development have turned to the “-omics”
sciences as a way of addressing these needs. Metabolic profiling, or
metabonomics, defines the metabolic phenotype and offers a source of novel
biomarkers that have better potential to translate effectively. This review
will discuss the broad philosophy and motivations behind metabonomics, and
illustrate the case with applications relevant to pharmaceutical development
and patient management. Particular focus will be paid to the potential of
metabonomics to contribute to biomarker discovery in toxicology and cancer
research.

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19:411–434CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar